Roundtable Chairs

Simon Foot, Group Development Director, Ember Services

Simon has been involved in the customer management industry for over 20 years – as both an operational leader and an advisor to major brands globally. He is a regular presenter and trusted industry commentator, being voted amongst the industry’s most influential voices in 2015/16. As an Ember Director, Simon has worked with some of the UK’s most significant brands to help them navigate through the complexity of defining and delivering technology led transformations to elevate the customer experience. In his spare time Simon is a keen golfer, football fan and family man, all of which involve far too much shouting these days!

Simon Donaldson, Head of Operations, Ikano Bank (UK)

Simon Donaldson is Head of Operations for the UK branch of Ikano Bank and has worked for Ikano Bank since 1999.

Simon’s achievements include:

Leading a department with over 100 contact centre co-workers

Achieving ‘winner status’ for Large Contact Centre of the Year and Best Employee Engagement Strategy of the Year (Midlands and Yorkshire Contact Centre Awards ‘16)

Simon’s ambitions are to take the department on a journey to become a servicing centre of excellence.

Roy Holmes, Head of Sales and Marketing, Vocalcom

Roy Holmes has worked in the Contact Centre arena for 30 years. He has worked for many of the leading suppliers in the industry including IBM, Aspect, Rockwell, Noble, and currently works for Vocalcom as Head of Sales and Marketing.

Tony Smith, Sales Director – EMEA, PCI-PAL

Tony’s experience in customer management and IT spans over 25 years – years that have been shaped by rapid change, the rise of digital channels, the emergence of cloud computing and a re-writing of the rules for customer engagement in an increasing and diversely regulated environment.

Tony’s career has tracked these developments and brought him to PCI-PAL in November 2016, where he is the Sales Director for EMEA. PCI-PAL is a suite of solutions designed to help run your customer contact operations in adherence with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). PCI-PAL solutions have been developed for the contact centre market by a team of contact centre specialists.

Before joining PCI-PAL, Tony excelled in a number of business development roles with market leading organisations including BT Global Services and Dimension Data , where he delivered cloud-based contact centre solutions for leading players in the public and private sector.

Tony specialises in helping organisations achieve their customer engagement ambitions by deploying innovative technologies that extend the art of the possible.

Mark Cassidy, Quality Partner Manager, Virgin Media

Background in people development prior to quality roles

10+ years in Quality Management

Responsible for the quality management of 1200+ people across 5 sites in 3 countries.

Winner of UK Contact Centre Quality Manager of the Year 2017.

Trevor Richer, Consultant, Trevor Richer Associates

Trevor Richer is a highly experienced marketing consultant with a background in some of the largest global companies including BT, Vodafone and Siemens. He specialise in helping companies develop their value propositions and thought leadership. His toolkits ensure best practice is embedded in companies’ processes. See trevorricher.com.

Steve Sullivan, Founder, Channel Doctors

Channel Doctors’ founder, Steve Sullivan, has 20 years’ experience of solution design and delivery in customer experience and contact centres. This has included working with a variety of brands such as American Express, Ageas, Abel & Cole, Land Rover, Marks & Spencer, The Guardian and Burberry.

As Deputy Chair of the UK Direct Marketing Association’s Contact Centre Council and lead for its Regulation Hub, Steve has developed a detailed, pragmatic understanding of current and future data protection regulation in the customer management space. This has been further enhanced through membership of the Direct Marketing Association’s GDPR Taskforce. Steve is currently developing course content for the Institute of Direct & Digital Marketing’s Certificate in GDPR and ePrivacy.

Steve is from Yorkshire, but has nothing against people from the Midlands.

Michael Peniket, Specialist Consultant, Ember Services

Experienced CX/ Transformation Consultant, with a demonstrated history of working in the management consulting industry. Skilled in Service Delivery, Operations Management, Banking, Sales, and Offshoring. Strong consulting professional working currently within the Insurance arena, delivering Operational Transformation and a new CRM solution to support business efficiency and new business growth.

Andy Hufton, Engagement Business Partner, Virgin Media

Andy is an Engagement Business Partner responsible for evolving, developing, communicating and tracking the delivery of strategic engagement and cultural objectives within the Customer Operations division in Virgin Media. He contributes to programmes and events to drive Engagement and Culture at a local and divisional level. His wider team are responsible for local Communications and Engagement and comprise of the Angels; A team dedicated to driving Engagement in their contact centres. Andy’s 16 year career in contact centres within Virgin Media has also included roles in Quality and Customer Retentions.